Supreme Court rules police must return bodies of three Al Aqsa shooting suspects, Palestinian citizens of Israel, to families for burial within 30 hours; says no law permits police to hold bodies.

The Israeli Supreme Court issued a precedent-setting ruling yesterday evening, 25 July 2017, on a petition filed by Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, declaring that the Israeli police has no authority to hold bodies.

The three-justice panel ruled that there is no Israeli law specifically authorizing the police to hold bodies.

Adalah had filed the petition on behalf of the families of the deceased on 20 July 2017 demanding Israeli police perform autopsies and immediately return for burial the bodies of the three suspects involved in the 14 July shooting attack at Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem.

Supreme Court Justices Yoram Danziger, Daphne Barak-Erez, and David Mintz ruled yesterday evening they accepted Adalah's petition because "the state did not indicate the source of [legal] authority that allows it to hold bodies as a condition for agreement upon funeral arrangements."

The Supreme Court rejected the state's position that conditioning the return of bodies is legal in accordance with a general police order that provides an officer is permitted to carry out "any action that is necessary" in order to maintain public order. The justices ruled that "the police's position conflicts with the need for detailed [legal] authorization for any action that harms a basic right. In our eyes, a number of basic rights hang here in the balance, first and foremost the right to human dignity."

"This precedent-setting ruling determines in a most detailed manner that the police have no authority to hold bodies of deceased individuals, and the police may not use bodies as bargaining chips even for purposes that the police feel are legitimate objectives. We hope that this ruling will put an end to the police practice that has become increasing common over the past several years – particularly in East Jerusalem cases – causing serious harm to basic human rights and to the rule of law."

~ Adalah Attorney Mohammad Bassam, in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling

This case is not the first time that the Israeli police or political leaders have refused to return the bodies of deceased Palestinians (both citizens of Israel and residents of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)) who assaulted or who were alleged to have harmed or killed Israeli civilians or police and were killed by state agents.